Yes, the VGK have hit a small speed bump over their last 5 games, which just happens to coincide with the trade deadline and the insertion of some new players into a cohesive unit that, prior to the trade deadline, seemed to be firing on all cylinders.
There’s no reason to even attempt to question the personnel moves and changes that GM George McPhee has implemented, with the blessing of Coach Gerald Gallant.
McPhee has been almost flawless in building this team and Coach Gallant has taken what McPhee and staff have given him and has them performing nearly perfectly. So this recent speed bump shouldn’t be a cause for immediate concern.
Though Pierre-Edouard Bellemare returned to the lineup, a number of players are still on the mend and last night, a key offensive part of the VGK number-one line, who has been scorching opposing teams and their goaltenders all season, suffered an injury; at this time, it’s not known how serious it is. Reilly Smith left the game late in the 2nd period when he took a hard hit directly to his upper torso along the boards behind the net. He was immediately in discomfort and went straight to the locker room. He never returned to the game. Losing Smith will have a huge effect on the chemistry this line has developed. Coach Gallant inserted Tomas Tatar onto that line for the remainder of the game.
The effect will be felt completely down the remaining three lines as players will have to be moved around by Coach Gallant in his attempt to fill the huge void that Reilly injury creates, especially if it’s long term. Injuries are part of the game, but as of late Vegas seems to be on the wrong side of that curve . Reilly Smith joins a long list of injured Knights: Neal, Lindberg, Sbisa, Schmidt, and Subban
Last night’s loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets was a game that was almost over before the end of the first period, as the Blue Jackets came flying out of the gate and scored just 16 seconds into the game. Their fore-check was giving Vegas problems and they had control of the tempo of the game. Columbus scored the second goal to go up 2-0 and Fleury appeared less than sharp last night.
The momentum of the game was clearly on the side of Columbus — until video replay coach Tommy Cruz was once again the eagle eye and notified Coach Gallant that he believed the play was offside. Cruz had plenty of time to look over his decision as play continued for a while inside the defensive zone of the Knights. When Columbus eventually scored Cruz notified Gallant and the coach challenged that Columbus was offsides when they originally entered the zone. The challenge was upheld and the goal was removed from the scoreboard.
Cruz has been nearly perfect this year in his assessments of calls that are subject to a coach’s challenge. In my opinion, he changed the entire complexion of the game, as Vegas seemed to get their legs under them after the 2nd goal was disallowed. The period ended with Vegas trailing 1-0, but you could sense that Vegas was now engaged.
The 2nd period was just 90 seconds old when Erik Haula scored his 24th goal of the season on a nice pass from David Perron, but the entire play never would’ve happened if Alex Tuch didn’t make a between-the-legs pass with his back to the play, springing both Haula and Perron into the neutral zone.
Unfortunately, that was Vegas’ only goal Vegas against backup goaltender Joonos Korpisalo, who was inserted into the lineup when Columbus’ starting goaltender, Seregi Bobrovsky, took ill. Joonos, who had lost his 3 previous starts, was outstanding last night, stopping 37 of the 38 shots he faced. He was the main reason why Vegas wasn’t successful in winning last night.
The other reason was Fleury had an off night, allowing 3 goals on 20 shots; the last shot was into an empty net. Fleury surrendered 3 goals on the initial 12 shots he faced.
When Ian Cole scored the 3rd goal of the game just 1:46 after Columbus took the 2-1 lead, it was going to be a long night trying to get 3 goals past Korpisalo in order to win the game.
Ian Cole, a former Pittsburgh Penguin with Marc Andre Fleury, has 4 goals this season and 3 of them are against Fleury. Does he know something about a weakness of Fleury? My guess is he doesn’t; it just happened to be a strange and rare off night for Fleury. Coming into last night’s game, Fleury had a 10-3-1 record on the road, along with a 22-8-3 overall record and a stingy 2.24 Goals Against Average and a .928 save percentage. We’re all entitled to a bad day at the office and it seems like Fleury had his last night.
VGK goal scorer: Haula (24)
VGK’s next game is tomorrow night vs. Detroit Red Wings, the first team to beat Vegas way back on Oct. 12. That was the game that Vegas surrender four 3rd-period goals to lose 6-3. I’m sure the VGK remember that very well. Game time is 4:30 p.m. Pacific time.
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